Wells Fargo Uses Week No One’s Listening to Admit It May Have Retaliated Against People Who Called Ethics Hotline

Remember all those crazy headlines about how Wells Fargo opened millions of fake accounts in customers’ names and then cleaned house by promoting a longtime company insider as its new chief executive? If you do, it probably feels like a vague, distant memory, in light of that small thing that happened Tuesday. And that's just the way Wells likes it! Everyone is onto bigger, orange-er, potentially dictator-y things. Not even Elizabeth Warren has the time to take a wrench to the bank’s kneecaps in front of her Senate peers, and stuff like this is generally marked High Priority on her To-Do list. So Thursday afternoon was a near-perfect time for new C.E.O. Timothy Sloan to slip in this little tidbit:

Wells Fargo & Co. Chief Executive Timothy Sloan said during a town-hall meeting Thursday that the bank found “some instances” where reports by employees of bad behavior to its ethics line weren’t handled appropriately, according to remarks reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. . . . While the “majority” of cases were handled appropriately, there are questions on some instances and the bank will further investigate those, according to the remarks. The Labor Department has said it is investigating allegations of retaliation at Wells Fargo, among other matters.